Digi Videos for August
Imaginative fingers on the keyboard of a Think Pad Edge
Buick produces a great slow mo add
Honda's Rube Goldberg machine
Baidu teams up with bing
China’s Baidu has teamed up with Bing and will be using the Microsoft search engine to better Baidu English language search results.
The rivalry between Google and Baidu is on the table with provoking articles like this one in The China Daily mentioning: “The [Baidu] cooperation with Microsoft may …. complicate Google's development in China..”
Baidu is the biggest search engine inside China but Google, even with its cold relationship with the Chinese censors, is still the second most popular search engine in China.
The Bing Baidu team up could be a result of Baidu’s year on year losses trying to branch out of China. The company has lost around RMB 680 million so far trying to gain popularity in Japan. The losses reportedly are mainly from operating expenses, executive expense, stock option compensation expense and so on. But also who wants to use an underdeveloped and censored algorithm outside China?
Possibly for this reason Baidu is looking to increase its users at home by providing better English language results.
According to Zhang Dongchen, Baidu assistant president, “10 million English-language searches are made on Baidu every day, mainly by professionals and university students in China.”
Although Google has made an image benefiting retreat from mainland China over its refusal to give in to censorship demands, other foreign search engines have not followed suit. Microsoft’s search engine Bing has been censoring its results in China in order to gain access to China's 470 million netizens, but has thus far amassed a measly 8% market share in popularity.
Bing wants to branch in and Baidu wants to branch out.
So Microsoft and Baidu have teamed up. The question is, is this is an attempt to oust Google from China completely? Would that really matter for Google?
Probably not. Google already has a reputation now, gold dust, for being a righteous and forthright institute in comparison to Baidu. Something that can only compliment the world’s most popular search engine. Plus Google is already comfortable selling foreign directed display adds to Chinese advertisers who spent billions on them last year, one of the highest such spends in the world, according to Google. The company also continues to employ 500 people in China and says revenue there is growing year over year.
Digi Videos For July
Intel and the characters from Madagascar merge for this funky advert
Siemens show off their vacuum technology refrigerators for freshness.
Alibaba’s humorous parody of throwing shoes at the US president
Water advert uses imaginative fluid movement
Digi Videos For June
Audi goes Heavy Metal
BMW 5 Series shows off the speed and how to get coffee without stopping
Samsonite uses travel nostalgia
Sina Weibo Facebook Spoof
We must abide by the 度
US companies have tried in many ways to enter China's internet market, such as Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, but have come up against a wall because of censorship issues. This latest attempt by a group of Chinese Americans to sue China Internet search giant Baidu for $16million through a US court for blocking their pro-democracy speeches, will probably have no greater success.
"We are a China-based company; obviously we need to abide by the Chinese law. Certain type of information or content is deemed illegal, and we have to take that out from our search result " Baidu CEO Mr. Li plainly stated.
“China's oversight of the Internet conforms with international practices and foreign courts have no jurisdiction over China's methods.” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu commented.
The Chinese government strictly monitors any anti-Party sentiment within its borders on and off line and no matter how many outside hopefuls try to weave in and out of this, they are ultimately unsuccessful. Those that try to gain Party trust are on their way to making a lot of money.
Forbes outlines China’s most popular social media blog Weibo (a sort of Facebook and Twitter hybrid), owned by another Chinese Internet giant Sina. It is used by less than 1% of the total population of China but already has 140 million followers, a lot more more than Twitter.
Imagine what will happen when eventually just another 2% or 3% of China’s population starts to use Weibo, not to mention 20% or 30%...
As the article describes, “Years of self-censoring experience have earned Weibo acceptance from the government.”
So, to keep fighting? Or time to change tactics?
Social Network Marketing on Microblogging Service : Macro Revenues?
As is known to all, Twitter has been testing advertising models such as Promoted Tweets, or micro-blog entries that are highlighted when users search for keywords on Twitter since last year.
Here in China, Twitter’s younger counterpart - Sina Weibo, is still researching potential advertising models, but is currently more focused on building its user base and platform. This might be true, however, just like Twitter , the website has a great challenge to face---turning the popular service into a highly profitable enterprise. This is to say, globally, micro-blogging has yet to be proven as a successful business model.
In most people’s eyes, advertising is the most promising way for micro-blogging service to earn profits. The second most talked about method is subscription—making high-end users pay for their accounts. Actually, most publishers talk about the two common monetization streams so often as if there were no other options.
We have to admit advertising and subscription might be two effective and safe ways to monetize the traffic, but they are so traditional—almost every website can take advantage of them. Micro-blogging service should never forget their unique weapon: social network marketing
The larger microblogging service grows, the more the connectivity between users benefits all. But there is gold beyond the conversations that are going on. The pure connectivity in itself is valuable. While miroblogging service may not run advertising, many companies would love to license the right to target people using what is called "birds of a feather" targeting: identifying a group of people with a common interest and then expanding that target by finding others with similar interests. A number of companies are doing this right now, while honoring privacy; they don't have to know who the people are. You see, companies now hold a powerful marketing tool, and micro-blogging service can get a commission, which could be turned into a large sum of revenues---a win-win deal.
A dozen of companies have already enjoyed the excellence of social network marketing, among them are world-renowned corporations such as Dell and Uniqlo. Maybe more companies, especially small ones, should give it a try.
“Groupon fatigue” in China
Gaopeng.com, the joint venture from Tencent and Groupon, which offers group buying deals to Chinese consumers, has officially opened on March 16, 2011, as part of the company's push to break into China's group buying market. Although numerous group-buying websites are already running in China, Daily-deals website Groupon still launched in China, bringing its popular brand of Internet retail to the world's most populous nation. In 2009 Groupon was a virtual nobody, limited to just 30 American cities. By the end of 2010, it had become a global success, with more than 4,000 staffs, 51 million subscribers in 565 cities worldwide and $760 million in revenues.
Despite the fact that the group-buying deals market is thriving in China, some companies criticize that the deals only attract mainly bargain-hunters who do not spend more than the coupon’s face value and do not become repeated customers. Moreover, studies have repeatedly shown that price discounts undermine brand value. They may be good for giving businesses some exposure but the benefit of this is likely to fade away after implementing a few promotions like this.
Obviously, it cannot rely on the “network effects” that have given companies such as Facebook and eBay, an almost overwhelming lead. Nevertheless there is one major niche for Groupon, that is being the dominant brand in the market, which is certainly an advantage: a long mailing list attracts better business owners, which pull in more consumers.
With its powerful momentum, strong management and strengthful financial support, the firm certainly has a chance of becoming the dominant platform for local service businesses to stimulate the money flows, much as Amazon has come to dominate online shopping for all sorts of physical goods. Even If so, daily deals will probably be j
ust one of Groupon’s offerings.
However, Groupon’s aggressive expansion into China is seriously intriguing its Chinese clones, the local group buying sites such as Lashou, Manzuo and Ftuan. The barriers to entering the daily-deals market are low and the network effects weak. Those companies are already working the market and are supposedly setting up an anti-Groupon union, banning Gaopeng.com employees from working with the Chinese sites ever again.
The biggest worry regarding Groupon is that it’s almost entirely run by foreigners. According to the Economists, “this is just another botched joint venture and another arrogant US Internet company swaggering into China, thinking its brand name and wads of cash will bridge cultural gaps.” Even one report detailing Groupon’s effort said that the operation was chaotic, and, probably most importantly, not run by the Chinese. Tencent, China’s largest Internet company, is also rumored to be thinking about launching a group buying service of its own.
Nevertheless, some do believe that Groupon can succeed where many others, like eBay, have failed. First of all, group buying is already a familiar concept in China, so it should be easier for Groupon to make its attack into a market where it doesn’t have to start from the beginning. Secondly, Tencent and Yunfeng Capital (founded by China’s leading e-commerce site Alibaba’s chairman Jack Ma) are excellent partners for Groupon.
After all, just like the Hong Kong-based Samsung Securities analyst Paul Wuh said, “Discounts will always be popular but the question is, will Groupon be more popular than the other websites.” Will Groupon once again dominate in this populous country, or it’s just like throwing a stone into the ocean, which only creates the minute ripple, we’ll see.
Marketing trends for 2011
The concept is no longer new but is still what any advertiser must face. The most difficult part about digital marketing is how to thrive in the digital arena. How to use the right channel at the right time with the right performance and achieve the right result? To develop a clear map for integrated digital planning, it is important to know the competitive advantages and opportunities of each digital solution.
The upcoming digital trends for 2011 are social marketing, content marketing, mobile marketing, accountability, and integration on which all advertisers, agencies and media owners will be focused.
Microblogging is rapidly getting more and more popular in China. The numbers of microblog users at the end of 2010 (more than 50million) made the microblogs role move from “new media” to “hot media” making the competition harder and harder between Sina, Netease, Sohu and Tencent. The key for the success of microblogging is to lure the maximum number of users finding the best bait like Kai-Fu Lee, the founding President of Google China.
Once everybody joined, content marketing should be the center of attention for all advertisers. This can be divided into 2 kinds: Sponsoring (exposure through big events), and Product Placement (displaying brands into movies, TV shows…). Content has to be interesting enough to make people think “It would be nice if I had that”.
Mobile Marketing is the real upcoming way of advertising for this year. The biggest challenge is definitely to be able to follow the fast upgrading of new technologies. Local-based service (LBS) and augmented reality (AR) are the latest trends for marketers. Another facet of mobile marketing to take into account is the growing numbers of Smartphone users (iPhone; Android). This raises several questions about mobile marketing. The dilemma of making apps, how to manage and update content, use of LBS, method to make AR fancier and response to a personal and highly-customized media.
How can we measure Internet advertising efficiency? Miniblog popularity is not only determined by the number of users. Are SOV and GRP applicable to Internet advertising? What is more important between interactivity and number? These are the challenging questions for accountability in 2011.
Many companies like CBN Weekly, The Bund or Modern Weekly already have their iPad website version, so shall we adapt advertising being digital or stay traditional? Combination is easy but the problem is still how to deliver innovative ideas based on the technologies control the results.
The Complexity of Email Marketing in China
The number of Internet users in China is growing every day, and the number of email users is far bigger that the total population of the US. This figure is due to Chinese Internet users confessing that they have different email addresses. One out of two has a work email address and a quarter uses a social network. And it’s not stopped going upwards. But how easy is it to reach them?
Either your e-mail server is located in China or not, you still can reach the majority of mailboxes with a deliverability rate of 94 to 96 percent. Plus, a standard anti-spam system (Corpease) added to a large Internet company (Netease) with a gaming site and a very popular online portal are different possibilities which may make you believe that sending emails in China sounds quite easy. But you may consider a few things before conquering the Chinese Internet market.
First of all, the Internet activity in China is far from what we are used to seeing, for example in the US. The email saturation figures are not what we could be familiar with: 91% in Korea and the US against only 55% in China. Then, the Internet Society of China created the CAN-SPAM which states that if your email has a business transaction purpose, Chinese authorities require that it has to be tagged as an advertising one with a subject beginning with “AD”.
Besides, China is not ONE market but has regional spoken and written language differences. If your email is published in English, it will be easier for the mailbox providers to consider it as a spam. It would be more difficult to recognize the reason of blocking it if it is written in simplified Chinese (embraced by most of China mainland) or traditional Chinese characters, more ancient and fancier. However, some consumers may request that e-mails delivered to them are in English, so consider allowing the content of your campaigns to contain both languages, with an English version of the message published below the Chinese version.
Web design conventions are also completely different in China. Chinese people like their sites to be packed with information, animation, and colors. And, you want to make sure you aren’t posting something that is a cultural no-no, such as the wrong colors or phrases. We also know, Chinese authorities are very strict about the Internet content. So you should make sure to steer well clear of any “adult”, weapons-related content or anything that should be viewed as compromising to China Internal Security
The Future of China’s Brands – Global By 2020
China has continued unstoppable growth as August saw them become the world’s second largest economy, overtaking Japan and staying hot on the heels of America. However critics argue that for China to become a true contender for the world’s leading economy their grasp of branding is fundamental. In future years it is predicted that China will no longer be seen primarily as the manufacturing powerhouse of the world, succeeding through furthering the growth of their economy via expansion of domestic brands.
Traditionally, Chinese companies do not see branding as high priority, competing on price rather than seeing it necessary to commit to long-term brand building – however this outdated ideology is changing. The typical view of the majority of products all being labeled ‘Made in China’ is slowly disappearing and we are beginning to see change - future predictions are that the invasion of Chinese brands to the Western world is inevitable and this is partly being catalyzed by technological advancements being made in China; the most significant being the digital marketplace.
Experts have commented that organisations from emerging markets are making significant inroads in the branding world due to developments in how they understand and connect new opportunities created by the digital marketplace. These advances are facilitating the ability of organisations to reach their customer base with more precision through platforms such as social networking sites and viral marketing. This shift towards online brand communication is becoming more common amongst Chinese organisations, although many still prefer traditional methods of advertising and marketing.
The Internet platform is one digital marketplace that provides an opportunity for companies to create an online embassy of digital content, which in turn generates representatives, thereby spreading the message of a brand or product. Online marketing is both effective and efficient cost wise, due to its ability to alter and tweak campaigns on the fly. Any sign of failure and changes can be implemented instantly. There is no off switch for online marketing it is constant and can occur 24/7 to enable global marketing power; although this could pose a threat if a bad reputation is acquired online, consecutively putting the brand in jeopardy in other marketing areas. Pay per click and other direct digital activities also enable companies to pay only for actions; therefore only paying when interested people from said target market or ringed-fence click on ads. This further saves money, time and allows for precise targeting of sales to a specific audience or behaviour.
The Chinese company Lenovo Group is a global brand that has managed to change its marketing techniques to utilise digital and internet technology. Lenovo employed the principles of ‘Dandelion Marketing’ to fully explore the advantages of the cost structure of digital and to spread their efforts to as many communities as possibly.
Dandelions epitomise the marketing technique as low cost seeds are planted to reach many places in order to explore all potential space – amid fears there will be a degree of failure. This is favourable to many companies as it assumes that enough will succeed in order to make it worthwhile; therefore lower risk. Lenovo have fully engaged in forums, blogs, podcasts and webinars as opposed to just traditional advertising techniques. Lenovo’s success provides a glimpse of the future; how organisations must rapidly identify and adapt efforts to a highly fragmented world. To make such a transaction Dandelion marketing has enabled Lenovo to take numerous small steps, which have generated big results.
The Internet and other “new technologies” are being successfully implemented by emerging countries. This is because technology is allowing organisations to reach customers like never before: without the need for a massive investment. Perceived risk increases with investment; therefore digital advances have lowered the chance of significant financial loss and made the appeal of research and development into brand marketing more attractive. This has occurred in China; organisations are starting to move brand marketing higher within their corporate strategy, with an eye set on better accountability through both increased sales and a lasting impression.
The Japanese clothing brand Uniqlo has utilised strongly the varying aspects the internet offers. One strategy the company used was ‘tweet the price down’, whereby through using Twitter, customers were able to lower prices of products in real time. Then at a deadline, the current items on offer were sold at their lowest ‘tweeted’ price. Uniqlo are famous for launching interesting promotional sites; other examples include micro sites to present specific woman’s clothing ranges and interaction between customers and models through featured clothing on the online catwalk. Uniqlo’s flash applet, ‘Uniqlock’ interlaces video snippets with a digital clock that is constantly updating the time globally. The videos include dancers dressed in simple Uniqlo apparel performing choreography and can be downloaded by customers as their very own screen saver; who ever said brands can’t reach out and create a “brand experience” via digital?
With utilisation of the internet and digital marketplace becoming more popular by the day, it surely will not be long before we see the end of products just being labelled as ‘Made in China’ and instead begin welcoming the generation of super brands to come from China in the very near future.
Business Insider is already predicting the top ten Chinese brands to dominate the US by looking past the importance of simply manufacturing to cost-effectiveness and global scale, and instead focussing on the importance of Brand Building through good quality and effective market-communication. Their top ten Chinese Brands include: Lenovo, Haier, Geely, Air China, China Mobile, Tsingtao Brewery, Huawei, Baidu, Li Ning, Suning. Read their full article and breakdown here: http://www.businessinsider.com/10-chinese-brands-2020-2010-7
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